Christmas charity appeal: how Street League gives hope using football

A Street League football training academy session at Durham University in Stockton-on-Tees. Street League is one of The Guardian's chosen Christmas appeal charities for 2011. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

In a sparkling sports hall at Durham University's Stockton-on-Tees campus, a dozen young men – and one woman – are absorbed in a football drill: control, volley a pass, run round three cones, back in position, receive the ball again. They are all eyes down and concentrating, soon they start to sweat, dig in to work harder, and around them their coaches call voices of encouragement: "Well done! That's good! And again! Keep working!"

These purposeful, positive footballers are not, though, a cohort from the highbrow university whose centre for rowing is on this site. These are locals, young people in the unemployment black spot of Teesside, who have never found regular work since leaving school, and who have described themselves, in plain-speaking discussion with their coaches, as "a lost generation".

Richard Thompson, 22, from Middlesbrough, is typical. Since leaving school at 16 his only paid work has been four months at Kentucky Fried Chicken, a short-term experience he recalls without nostalgia. Since then, there has been nothing. Living with his disabled mother, he spends his days playing computer games. Asked how these years of his youth have been, he answers: "It's a personal nightmare."

The football course that is providing Thompson and the others with a reason to get up in the morning is organised by Street League, which is devoted to offering the sport as a positive lifeline out of what it terms unemployment's "spiral of despair". Street League was formed in 2000 by Damian Hatton, then a junior doctor in east London, who, treating the same bedraggled homeless people in accident and emergency, began organising football for them in the evenings. He saw the good it did them, and soon dedicated himself to setting up the organisation to do it systematically. Street League has been chosen by the Guardian as one of the eight charities helping disadvantaged teenagers and young adults that will benefit from its 2011 Christmas appeal.

Thompson heard about Street League's entry-level two-hour weekly sessions outdoors, turned up for several months, then went on to this more intensive "academy" programme, which runs Monday to Thursday for eight weeks. Alongside the beloved football work, Street League runs classroom-based programmes on confidence-building, CV writing and other life skills.

"It has helped me to become more confident to speak to people," Thompson says, "and the football helps build teamwork, leadership and other skills which will help me have a better chance of getting a job."

Dean Cartwright, a football coach and advice worker given the title progression co-ordinator at Street League, says he sees young people such as Thompson arrive withdrawn, lacking confidence or covering it up with bravado, then visibly growing in pride as they enjoy the football and are drawn into the personal development.

"A very important part of it is the one-to-one time they get with us and their mentors," Cartwright explains. "Many won't have anybody who really listens to them, and they start to tell you what is really going on with them, talking about what they might want to do. We do a session called 'Why Work?' and money is very rarely top of the list – it is respect, and self‑respect."

Street League now has partnerships with local authorities, agencies including the probation service and Jobcentre Plus, and universities – Durham is providing its excellent facilities here without charge. The courses run in London, Glasgow, Manchester and the north-east and the ambition is to extend Street League's presence to eight more cities. The chief executive, Matt Stevenson-Dodd, says there is "huge demand", given the current dire increase in youth unemployment, which has exceeded one million for those aged 16-24. Street League's results have shown that, despite the dreadful economic climate, 72% of the young people who have "graduated" from its academy have moved on to education, training or work.

At the heart of this vital work is football itself: beguilingly simple, yet transformational. The parents of most Street League participants themselves never worked after the collapse of the industries that used to provide near-full employment on Teesside. For young lives blighted by poverty, low expectation, often family breakdown, drink, drugs, crime and, fundamentally, interminable boredom, sport, the game of football, arrives stripped to its primary magic. There is the joy of running around and kicking a ball, the teamwork and camaraderie missing from solitary lives on the dole, the physical feelgood that comes from exercise, and the intricate skill of the game.

"I have been in youth work for 20 years and I have never seen anything as powerful as football for making a difference," Stevenson-Dodd says. "It's phenomenal. People take to it so enthusiastically because they love it, and our workers are able to build relationships with them very quickly, which in other circumstances would take months. The changing lives bit, the positive outcomes, come from that foundation."

Among the Teesside youngsters who told Cartwright they saw themselves as a lost generation is Haji Urare, 22, originally from Tanzania. Working, as they all are, to his Community Sport Leadership Award, an entry-level coaching qualification, Urare is taking the session, running up the line, shouting: "Well done lads! That's it, keep going!"

Mostly, Cartwright says, the encouragement comes naturally to the participants, but they do need a little instruction in being positive, a useful life- lesson. When his planned drills are done, the lads pat Urare on the back and tell him it was his best session yet. Then he sits down to tell his extraordinary story. At 17, he left Tanzania, walking and hitching for two weeks to Cape Town, where he stowed away on a ship. "I didn't know where the boat was going," he says. "I had some bread, some biscuits and a two-litre bottle of water. When they found me after eight days I was nearly dead."

The boat was headed for Sheerness in Kent and when it arrived he sought asylum. His case was repeatedly refused, and he was moved, up to Leeds, then Newcastle, then fetching up in Stockton. He has met a local girl, they have had two young sons, and in January he was finally accepted for citizenship. Tall and with a rangy stride, he is loving the football. "This is giving me so much," he says. "I never thought I would be given a chance like this. I would like to move on and do more courses from here. I feel positive now, like I can achieve something, be a good role model for my kids."

The one woman is Keri Turford, 24. Small, and softly spoken, she is painstakingly piecing her life back together after a torrid time. She has GCSEs and college NVQ and BTEC qualifications, but having married at 17, and had two boys, she put her further education on hold until the children started school. Recently she was evicted from the house she was in and is living with the boys, six and four, in a Middlesbrough hostel for the homeless. "It's better than being on the street," she says.

Severely lacking confidence and suffering from depression, one of the Street League volunteers met her and suggested she come along. She is not a huge football enthusiast but the circuit training and other physical workouts have helped transform her sense of herself. She has eaten better, taken care of herself, and put weight on since the four and a half stone she was at her lowest ebb.

One Street League session is with Jamie Edwards, a motivational speaker who talks about nourishing a positive outlook, and how to overcome barriers. "That absolutely opened my eyes," she says. "I've enjoyed the training, I know I can better myself. My self-confidence has soared."

The money Street League raises from donations will pay to maintain existing programmes such as this one, and to do more such work in the other cities.

"For young people with disadvantaged backgrounds, unemployment is particularly devastating," Stevenson-Dodd says. "It is a spiral of despair that can blight young lives for ever. Unemployment is rising now, but we cannot allow these young people to be a lost generation. We can provide some hope among this gloom, with the work we do at Street League."

Eight charities that specialise in turning around the lives of troubled young people will be the beneficiaries of this year's Guardian and Observer charity appeal. Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger explains why